Racing - CCAP Tuesday Night Crit, July 26, 2016 - Bs, led out sprint after a hot-for-me race

The last two times I raced I got shelled here, and in fact last week I got shelled so badly that I didn't even finish the post about the race. It was hot, I felt "blocked" (which is really another term for "not as in shape as I wanted to be"), and it was an exhausting outing to make it to the race.

This week seemed to be about as hot, expected temps at race time in the 93-94 degree range. I seemed to melt in the heat before so I was careful to pack some insulated bottles with lots of ice and a bit of water.

I also let myself eat some more carbs in the prior two days. With my A1C (historic blood sugar as measured on red blood cells) a bit high I've been focusing on not eating a lot of carbs. I realized that after almost 8 months of this that I lack some energy in races, the top end I need to push when it's tough. My guidelines were from my sister - 15g of carbs for breakfast, 45g for lunch, 45g for dinner, and 15g for a few snacks during the day.

To put things in perspective I was probably consuming a full day's worth of carbs in just one meal, and probably a day's worth just in the hour before a race. A can of soda is about 45g of carbs; one slice of bread would kill my breakfast budget.

So in the 24 hours prior to the race I went a bit hog wild. I didn't count every gram but realistically I had 400-500g of carbs. Ravioli. Bread (in the form of maybe six sandwiches). Sugary stuff also, like some Nutella, a serving of danish my dad had refused for two days, some left over ketchup from one of Junior's hot dogs. I hoped that this short term sugar sacrifice would pay dividends at the race.

Our tight schedule got derailled a bit by my dad with some untimely stuff out of our control but we got on the road only a little later than planned. We got to the course in decent time, not too much standing traffic, and it left me with a solid 5 minutes to get ready.

Now, back at home, I'd already done stuff like put on my bibs, pin my number, and collected everything possible for the bike. I also pumped up the tires. I know the tubes lose air hourly but if I pumped up the tires at home it'd be maybe 90 minutes before race time. That's not bad.

Oh and the pin job. Heh.

28 pins.

I tried not to make the number hard to read so the pins go on the perimeter or on the number.

I was feeding my dad and had a lot of time on my hands. I'd pinned the number already and decided to get Junior's "bin of pins". An unexpected side-effect of promoting races for a couple decades is that you end up with safety pins everywhere. Junior loves to put things where they belong so when Junior finds a safety pin he puts it in a little container that I designated the right place for safety pins (if only I was so organized). I checked the pins because they eventually rust or they bend, tossed any that seemed even slightly off, and net result?

Lotsa pins.

I left a few pins in the bin to sort of plant the seed for newly found pins, meaning he'll look at the bin and think, "Oh, this is the right bin for safety pins."

For some reason the pin job reminds me of one of those people with lots and lots of piercings.

We headed out to the race. Although it's a short drive, about 35 minutes without traffic, with the time being about 5 PM aka rush hour when we head out it's usually a bit longer than that. We got there with maybe 10 minutes to spare.

After getting my dad situated with the Missus and Junior I signed in and put myself together for the race. I rolled out to the starting group, realized it was a Junior group doing a final "after the race review" thing, started to roll away, and then the official called us to the line. So I warmed up for about a hundred yards.

Island Rider at the start

I don't think I ever posted this but one of my five outside training rides in 2015 was with Island. He lives a town over from where I used to live, he cut his teeth racing at Bethel, he consciously went out and supported the sponsors of the Series, his teammate helped me a ton with the website, he's sort of involved in cycling discussions online, yada yada yada. He normally doesn't meander up this way for a weekday race so it was nice to see him. I don't think I've talked to him in person since our training ride a year or so ago.

I did notice that he had some nice HED wheels. The front looked awfully tall. I touched the wheel with my finger.

Me: "Is that a 9?" (Stinger 9, 90mm tall)
Island: "No, it's a 7." (Stinger 7, 75mm tall)
Me: "Oh! That's what I run!"
Island: "Where do you think I got the idea?"

Heh.

I looked at his wheels again. Yes, they did look like mine, except his were newer. And it looked like he rode them more often than I did mine.

Left side wind exiting Turn 3.

Means sit to the right exiting the turn.

Taking advantage of the fact that I know Island, I'll use him as the "drafting example". The wind was moderately strong and it required decent Wind Management to save energy. The trickiest part of the course was exiting Turn 3 through to the start/finish line. The wind hit you from the left as you exited the turn, forcing you to sit to the right. In the picture above I'm behind and slightly to the right of Island. This was about where you wanted to be to get maximum shelter.

Front wind halfway to start/finish area.

Means sit directly behind the next rider.

Problem was that as you traveled along the curved bit the wind direction changed. In the picture above the wind is hitting us head on. I've adjusted my position behind Island based on the wind direction.

Right side wind at start/finish area.

Means sit to the left a bit.

On the start/finish straight the wind hit us from the right side. I've had to adjust my position relative to Island once again.

This happened every single lap. It's a bit tricky, shifting over like that. It requires vigilance on your part as well as understanding from the other riders. If everyone is reading the wind properly then everyone understands how critical it is to stay sheltered, and you naturally adjust and shuffle around to let people get into and stay in shelter.

It's when riders aren't aware of the wind that it becomes tricky. To someone like that I probably looked like a pretty ragged rider, slowly drifting from one side of the rider in front to the other.

The heat didn't help much. Every week I'd been pretty good about waving to Junior. This week I probably waved twice, maybe three times. I was absolutely smashed by the heat. I kept dumping ice cold water on myself out of my Podium Ice bottles, taking a sip, but it didn't really make a huge dent on the heat. I guess I really haven't ridden in anything like this regularly. Not only that, I've been indoors most of the time, so my ambient temperature for the last two months has probably been mostly 75-80 degrees. This mid-90 stuff was killing me.

I continued on, stamping on the pedals (more on that on a different post), my awareness constantly narrowing to just the wheel ahead of me. I checked my SRM a couple times, mainly to make sure that I wasn't in real physical difficulty, else I'd just sit up and withdraw from the race. The SRM duly reported that I was "well within parameters", at least for heart rate.

I didn't feel like it.

Over the winter I paid to do a fitting, the first fitting I ever paid for. The fitter, CP, lives in my home town. I'd hoped to see him at the races at some point, but after a few weeks of not seeing him, I sort of gave up. Fitting is a retail business and Tuesday evenings are a retail kind of time.

At some point in the haze of the heat I realized that the kit next to me was one of the Stage One kits. CP rides for Stage One - their core team members basically joined for life. CP is a big, powerful rider, reminding me in his style of Johan Capiot, and here he was, Capiot himself, next to me.

He rolled to the front, I duly took his wheel. His is a strong, steady wheel, very easy to trust. I know because I spent some significant time on that wheel in the early years of the Bethel Spring Series, on his wheel, watching his TriSpokes whirling around. He was always super strong in a sort of Cancellara kind of way. He could put down solid power for minutes at a time. I actually dreaded seeing him at the Series. I remember thinking to myself during those days, "Oh, man, CP is moving up again."

Then I'd be groveling on wheels for the next couple laps as he did this or that at the front.

CP to my left, of Body Over Bike

So it came as no surprise when he started to put some pace into the race. A move had gone off the front, no one was helping him, and he felt the need to do a pull. Of course no one was helping him, I was the one right behind him and I wasn't in a position to close much more than about a couple foot gap. He did what was natural for him. I could see his body language change just a bit as he hunkered down for the effort.

Then, hands still up on the hoods, butt still planted firmly on the saddle, he accelerated.

I watched him ride away.

Others rode after him, maneuvering around the mobile chicane in the road, aka me.

The moves came back, a three or so rider move went clear, and the race came down to its final laps.

With Island being a here a real treat I decided I'd try to help him out at this probably unfamiliar venue. I gave him some advice on the wind, I tried to point out some of the strongest riders willing to make moves, and, at two laps to go, I rolled up to him and told him to follow me.

Another rider I think misunderstood me and got on my wheel, Island letting him in. I started going a bit faster at the bell but someone attacked at the same time so I really only neutralized the attack. Then on the backstretch I started to open it up. I wasn't out of the saddle, I didn't want to jump (I think I really couldn't do a proper jump at that moment), I only wanted to "go faster".

Going through Turn 3 I must have done something off since the gap opened up there. I kept going, hoping the rider behind would get back on my wheel, but the reality is that in such a situation the leadout man has to ease up, wait, and try to coordinate with the sprinter getting back on the gas again.

I didn't do that so I gapped myself off the front. I sat up after pedaling a bit and watched the riders roll by me.

The field did a little sprint, behind the break. I realized after the fact that my approach to the race has been "if there's no break lead out the sprint, if there's a break then I'll sprint". I forgot that mantra in my heat-induced haze and I didn't sprint even though I probably could have done so without feeling too guilty.

At any rate I was okay with watching the rest of the group sprint for the line.

I picked up a fresh bottle of ice water from the Missus, told Junior I'd be right back, and got out to roll around for a minute or four. I needed to cool off a bit and I needed that constant slight breeze from being in motion on the bike.

As a bonus Island was rolling around as well. We rehashed bits of the race, I clarified some tactical stuff, we talked briefly about life, and then we called it a day.

I rolled back to our base camp, Junior waiting for me.

Junior after the race.

Xander, behind him, had just given him a high 5, hence the big grin

One of the Juniors, Xander, was walking by and gave him a high five. This absolutely made his day. Another rider played with Junior for a bit, doing stuff with Legos. I know it made Junior's day because the first thing he told me was that, "Kevin played Legos with me!" He was so happy.

(On an aside calling Junior Junior gets confusing with Junior racers around.)

Junior, the Missus, and Pops

We had to get going as I didn't want Pops to be in the heat too much. I even patted his face, neck, and arms down with some ice-water dampened towels. But before I could do that Junior wanted to play with the pedals and cranks on my bike.

Junior with my bike

He was super disappointed that "Mr Esteban" wasn't around. My teammate had made a Craigslist purchase for me, some Thomas the Engine blue train track, and Junior went absolutely nuts over all the extra track and the drawbridge and the stations and stuff we got. I had told him Mr Esteban was giving us some Thomas track. It's simpler than saying he got it for me, plus it dilutes the "Daddy buys me everything" deal - I want to pass around the credit. So his new best friend is Mr Esteban, who, unfortunately for us, couldn't make it this week.

Once he understood that Mr Esteban wasn't around he wiped away his disappointment and went back to telling me about the race and such. We walked back to the car together with him helping me steer my bike.

At times he looks so big, like when we're messing around on the couch or on the bed. His legs go from here to there, if I hold him across my arms he sticks out everywhere, feet out that side, head out the other, arms dangling to the sides. At other times, like when he plays with my bike, he looks so, so tiny.

At the car he started to melt down a bit. Doing even the earlier B race pushes his sleep schedule pretty hard, making the trip home tough on him sometimes.

No race next week as the venue isn't available. Two more after that and then I think it's done for the year.

And that'll be my 2016 racing season. I know I'll be able to race a bit more in the future, I just don't know when. It'll happen when it happens and that's good enough for me.

Ah, life. It's a cycle.

Racing - CCAP Tuesday Night Crit - July 5, 2016, Shelled Hard, Tried to Lead Out a 24" Wheel Junior

Ah, the Tuesday Night Worlds. For me it's been a tough couple weeks so I didn't ride much. I did get a half hour in on Monday to loosen the legs, but before that I think I last rode Thursday.

In the meantime my Facebook feed has been full of reports of a number of the local Juniors that do the B Race placing at Nationals.

To top it off the ideal summer weather - 50s at night, 70s during the day - came to a crashing halt today. It was over 90 degrees and sort of humid after a morning shower.

Finally, I got my A1C follow up blood test done and it told me I need to be a bit more diligent about cutting carbs.

Basically I hadn't progressed any on the bike, there were a lot of strong riders out there, I felt a bit under fueled due to low carbs, and therefore tonight would be an exercise in damage control.

Close up during the neutral laps.

I like to do "best practice" stuff when I ride. So during the two warm up laps I tried to avoid the hoods. I'd ride the tops if I felt it safe enough to not have to brake suddenly. I rode the drops otherwise, because the drops offer the best control, best braking, most secure grip. This is if you can brake from the drops. I know that smaller handed riders may not be able to brake as well from the drops so there are exceptions, but for me the drops are my hand position of choice.

In the third turn, if things looked okay, I tried to ride close to whoever was on my inside. I didn't want to spook them so I'd ride a bit behind, but basically it was practicing cornering in a tight field.

Neutral laps over and we got under way.

A big field.

There was a decent size group taking to the start. However some of the aforementioned strong Juniors started punching away at the pedals and the group started to split apart.

First gap that I closed.

One big gap opened up right away. I debated sitting and sort of keeping an eye out for struggling riders in the field. Then I realized that I was one of the struggling riders. So I made a somewhat impromptu decision to first make the first group, then worry about helping others.

I went to bridge the gap.

Not very hard, just sort of rolled across it.

I couldn't recover well though and when the others started upping the pace a bit, not even really attacking, I couldn't stay hooked on.

Getting shelled hard.

I looked back and realized that the field had really split apart. I didn't have a group to fall back into, there were two or three groups already with a bunch of individual riders scattered around the course. I decided to soft pedal for a while until I felt a bit better, then I'd look around and see what I could do.

A nice benefit to my "solo training ride at about 15 mph" was that I could wave to Junior virtually every lap. It crushes him when he waves or yells and I don't acknowledge him so to be able to see his face light up as he realizes I'm waving to him... it's worth not being in the field.

Junior waving (he's in the little chair)

At some point I jumped in one group but couldn't really do much. I pulled off and pulled myself out of that group.

This 24" Wheel Junior caught my eye.

A slightly more relaxed group rolled by, a Junior on a 24" wheel bike pedaling furiously at the back of the line. I accelerated to see if he needed a hand but he closed the first gap pretty quickly. Entering the next turn a gap opened again.

He closed that gap on his own.

Note the very low position.

And again he closed it.

I don't fault him for cornering poorly. It appeared that even without braking, even with him getting low on the bike, he simply didn't coast as fast. Whether it was the 24" wheels (and their inherently reduced inertia), the different rolling resistance (24" tires have higher rolling resistance), his light weight (less inertia/momentum), I don't know. Whatever, a gap would open at each corner and he'd close it after a brief struggle. This happened in every corner.

Drafting closely and on the correct side (left side at this part of the course).

What impressed me even more is that he seemed to have an instinct for Wind Management. He stayed to the right coming out of Turn Three but then ended up more to the left as we hit the start/finish. During the race I watched a lot of adult riders not get this at all. Here was a kid, if you will, who seemed to get it automatically.

Because of those two factors I left him alone. No helpful pushes, just a little protection from the wind once, but otherwise I let him do his thing. At some point when I rolled by him he seemed to drop off. I figured he'd exhausted himself closing all those gaps.

I initially thought I'd sprint at 2 to go, so I'd "cross the line" at the bell, but then I thought that's a bit selfish. I'd rather contribute to the group. I was at least a lap or two down on some of these riders so I decided to do a somewhat laid back leadout. I could act as the moto, everyone could follow, and there'd be a fun sprint.

I rolled to the front just before the bell. When I checked back I was pleasantly surprised to see the 24" wheeled Junior sitting right behind me.

I put my hands on the hoods and tried to make myself wider. From my own experience I know that drafting a tall person changes the drafting dynamics compared to drafting a shorter person. When I draft a tall person I'm behind their knees - it's not much of a draft. I understood that sitting up really high doesn't help. What I needed to do was to make my torso as un-aero as possible. Hoods were high enough, I spread my elbows, and pedaled a steady  pace.

Looking back to make sure the Junior is on my wheel.

I had to look between my legs as I couldn't see him if I looked over a shoulder.

My HR is 166 bpm - I'm pretty much blown.

Even with this "mellow" leadout I was starting to suffer. I tried not to push too hard and I eased as I came out of Turn One, knowing the Junior would lose a few feet. I looked down just in time to see his wheels veer to the side - he'd pulled out of line.

I looked back because the Junior sat up and moved over.

He's behind the older Junior who is telling me to go, go, go.

I looked back but he seemed to be done. The Junior in front of him told me to go, to jump, to sprint. I think everyone was trying to be helpful to one another no one was actually trying to win.

I looked at the gap to the next rider, the speed that they were going, and decided to do a jump on the backstretch. I'd sit up at Turn Three and see what happened after. The group had disintegrated - I think my pull wasn't really constructive so next time I'll do it a bit slower - and the riders went by one by one.

Junior (our Junior) after I rolled up.

I rolled up to Junior who is an absolute chatterbox right now. He started asking me about this and that, started talking about that and this, and generally jabbered for a minute or two. The crazy thing is that I understand it all, all the subject changes, all the random idea injections.

He's telling me about everything - he's in the Narrative Phase.

Squeezing the brake lever, sort of. It's not just adults that do it instinctively.

He wanted to help me walk the bike back to the car, or, rather, I'd help him walk the bike back to the car. He pointed out all sorts of things as I packed the bike away, didn't run into the street, and basically was a good kid.

On the way to the car I'd spotted the 24" wheeled Junior. He was there with his dad at the very least and I wanted to let the Junior know something important. My Junior and I walked over to the car.

I asked the adult racer (he was in the B race also) if the Junior was his son. He nodded affirmatively. I addressed the Junior, because I wanted to make see if he'd blown up or if he pulled off because he didn't want to get in the way.

"I tried to lead you out on the last lap. I was really surprised that you were on my wheel but you were riding really strongly before. I wanted to ask you - when you pulled off on the last lap were you done? Or did you pull off because you didn't want to get in the way?"

The Junior was nodding before I finished.

"You were done?"

Nod.

"Okay. Because I wanted to make sure you understand that if you're on a wheel you earned your spot. You have every right to be on the wheel. You don't need to give it to anyone. It's your wheel. You understand?"

Nod.

"Okay. Well if I'm at the front at the bell it means I'm not sprinting. It means that if you want a leadout you should get on my wheel. Right?"

Grin. Nod.

The dad and I talked briefly and then (my) Junior and I left to get my Pops.

(As a side note - I said something that wasn't quite accurate to the dad. When I started racing I was a featherweight. Even so I couldn't climb, I couldn't time trial, and I could sprint. My cycling physiology tendencies were already very clear. However I said that "even so" I could hit 42 mph from a standing start in one gear. I realized after the fact that I didn't even know I could sprint until I'd been racing maybe three years. By then I was closer to 100 lbs rather than 90 lbs. At 103 lbs, 17 years old, I could do a standing start, one gear (53x12), and hit 42 mph consistently. It was a Steve Bauer training thing so I did it because Steve Bauer. But when I started at 15, at probably 90 lbs, I didn't have much data in terms of top speeds in sprints and such. I hit 30 mph sprinting up a short hill a few driveways down from the house - I knew that because my mom was just behind me and noting my speed. But other than that I didn't have a lot of data for the first few years I raced. I wanted to clarify that.)

*edit update: the 24" Wheel Junior got the bronze at Nationals just a short time ago. Apparently he is quite strong, I had no idea.

Racing - CCAP Tuesday Night Race - June 28, 2016 B Race, Finally Led Out Jon And He Won!

Another Tuesday Night Worlds.

For me, now, these are the only sure thing as far as races go. With my Pops's limited mobility it's not really possible to go much further for a race - it's a 35 minute drive to the Rent for us. Related to that it's also something where it should be a lower risk environment. At the Rent there are fewer riders, nothing at stake, and an entry fee that I have no problem writing off if we have to leave all of a sudden.

It takes a solid half day to get things together for the race, with the goal of showing up virtually ready to race. I usually have to put my cycling shoes on but I was completely kitted up in the car other than that, even down to my pinned number.

Well, okay, I wasn't wearing my helmet, and I put my gloves on only after I turn the camera on, but still, heart rate strap, bibs, jersey. Camera charged, phone charged.

We made it with a few minutes to spare, enough that I think I did one lap warm up before the race. The gray clouds made me decide to use my "rain race front wheel", a 2010 Stinger 4 (bought used) with a brand new Vittoria rain tire, a Vittoria Corsa Evo Tech. It's a 270g tire with a scalloped tread along the sides.

My Stinger 9 rear wheel, my main rear race wheel, has a matching tire. Rear traction isn't as critical in the dry and I haven't noticed much difference between that and the Bontrager XXX and Vittoria Corsa Evo regular tires that I've used on my Stinger 6.

If it started drizzling I wanted to have the rain front tire, and in the dry, on this course, I figured the rain front tire should be okay. In a super technical course with very hard turns I suspect the front rain tire might start feeling wiggly.

At any rate with my Stinger 4 front, Stinger 9 rear, I rolled up to registration, paid my fee, signed the release, and meandered out to the course.

Wave to Junior at the start of the neutral laps (he's waving back from those chairs)

He's with the Missus, Pops is in the light shirt/hat.

The B race generally starts with two neutral laps, paced by some of the Cat 1 and 2s from CCAP. Today MikeM was the pacer and he rolled out at a moderately fast pace.

Ralph, who I led out earlier this year, chatting on the first neutral lap.

Ralph, who won one of the races earlier, rolled out but then eased. We chatted briefly and a big gap opened to MikeM. Other riders closed it but it made for a somewhat tough neutral bit, with some fast riding mixed in there. I decided to stay near the front for a bit just because, and the race was on. Surprisingly the wind seemed pretty calm for the Rent. Wind Management was less critical tonight. Important, yes, but not critical.

Gap that I had to close

I found myself gapped a number of times, not paying attention to what happened in front of me and then discovering a rider just up from me had let a gap go. I closed at least one gap but the work hurt me.

A gap that I actually would have had a hard time closing.

I found myself gapped off again. I was suffering here and couldn't pull very hard. The only way I could get across the gap would be to jump hard but that wouldn't help anyone behind me because a big jump isn't something everyone wants to do when they're already at the limit. The only way to close the gap without really hurting those behind me would be to motor across it at a slightly elevated pace. This was something I couldn't do at that moment.

Therefore I took the liberty of giving a big assist to the rider in front. I had to ride up next to him, to buy me "push back" space. When one rider gives another rider an assist, there's a preservation of momentum - nothing comes for free. In this case the "assisting" rider will go backward with the same force as the assist. I hoped to assist about 10 feet worth which meant I had to have about 10 feet clear behind me. I'd keep pushing the pedals hard so I'd really drift back only 5 or 6 feet, but, still, I had to move up just a bit.

A really big push, after making sure it was clear around us.

Here's a screenshot of the assist. If you're doing an assist put your hand as close to the saddle as possible. It may be that you're on a training ride with someone significantly weaker than you, and you need to give that other rider an assist. You want to give the assist down by the saddle so that you don't assist the rider right off the bike. If you try and push on the rider's back or arm or something you'll have an awkward moment at best. At worst you may shove the rider right off their bike, possibly taking you out in the process.

In my case the rider was standing so I told him to sit. Once he sat I gave the push.

You can't see but the most stable handlebar position in this exercise is holding the bars right next to the stem. This way any inadvertent steering inputs get minimized. If you were holding the drops or worse, the hoods, all your wobbles/movements will affect your front wheel even more, destabilizing you.

Gap closes up nicely.

After my assist I had to make a small effort to get back on his wheel. However we closed half the gap without a wattage-sucking acceleration and we were back in the field.

You'll sometimes see stuff like this in the pro races on descents, where the guys behind will roll up to the next rider and just give them a gentle nudge forward. In flat sections it's less common. The main reason is that when you give someone an assist you get shoved back - it's like someone hitting their brakes in the middle of a pack. Use your judgment and proceed only if you know you're clear behind.

CCAP rider eases after three riders roll away including a CCAP teammate.

This is good teamwork.

I was following wheels near the front as some rain started falling. I was thinking the official might call the race and wanted to be up there for a surprise bell lap. The official had nerves of steel, held out, and we finished in the dry. But that's not why I included the picture above.

The CCAP rider in front had just let a gap go. He had a teammate up the road in the three rider group barely visible in that picture. To help them out he soft pedaled and then flat out coasted up front. This was absolutely perfect teamwork. I even told him that he did good as I rolled by him.

Esteban attacked relentlessly so I could sit and follow.

A teammate that I rarely speak with off the bike is Esteban. He's a very experienced Cat 3 and is strong enough to make moves without shelling himself if he gets caught. Although we never really specifically discussed it we always fall into a dynamic duo sort of roles. He will attack relentlessly and I'll cover moves. He tries really hard to let me shelter, to save my legs for the sprint.

We did more of that tonight. I didn't count but I'd guess that he attacked maybe 10-12 times, most of the time with the express intent of taking pressure off of me.

How did I know that?

As he flew by me he'd tell me.

"Sit."
"Wait."

Etc.

He didn't have it to solo away, or maybe he just turned down the power once he got free of the field, so as we rolled into the last 5 laps he started looking for me. First he put in a pretty serious attack, getting the biggest gap in the race so far. Then when he returned he recovered for about half a lap and the rolled by me in the IAB (invisible aero bar) position, looking directly at me to make sure I was good.

At 3 to go Esteban went to the front to keep me in good position.

It was a bit early but I think he wanted to push now so he could recover a bit for the finish. I haven't had such a teammate in forever and it felt good to race with someone like that. It's like playing music with other people, when the music plays off each other it's great.

Here I'm telling Jon to sit on my wheel.

We're about to see 2 to go.

Unfortunately for all of Esteban's work, one of my goals for the B race is to not win it. I don't think that it's really sporting of me to try and win because my standard race tactic is to sit in for the whole race and then do a sprint. The B race allows me to sit in a bit easier and my sprint is a bit better, relatively speaking. As I said to the Missus I'd be a great Cat 4 sandbagger. I'm pretty sure that Esteban knows this because I haven't been sprinting for the finish or I've "gone too early" when I'm there at the end.

So despite all of Esteban's work my goal was not to sprint for myself. If it came down to a field sprint I wanted to lead out either the field or a specific rider. I started a lead out the second time I raced this year, my teammate Jeff roaring past to lead me out. Our dual leadout led to Ralph winning the race.

Tonight I watched JonG do some big efforts. I tried to lead him out spur of the moment a while back and totally flubbed things. I wanted to set things right since that night and do a better leadout. That last sprint I told him to get on my wheel well after we got the bell - we were too rushed, the situation too fluid, and we didn't have the time for him to get my wheel. This time I told him just before 2 to go to get on my wheel. He could get on without any problems, mentally commit to following me into the sprint.

Me?

I steeled myself for some big efforts.

Jon dutifully followed me for the next lap, from 2 to go to 1 to go. It's actually very tough when following a leadout. It's very easy to think, "Oh, my guy is getting boxed in, I better move over to that wheel." Also, since I'm not very strong, I couldn't just sit at the front or sit in the wind. I had to sit on wheels while doing the leadout. This meant Jon had to follow me through the field or, at best, along the side of it. For him to stick with me is pretty impressive.

As we got the bell riders jumped all over the place. I found myself pretty far back. I kept checked back to make sure Jon was still there - I expected him to lose faith and jump around me any second. Again, to his credit, he stuck with me.

For me I had to balance between three things. I didn't want to go too hard because I'd blow up. This would not only drop Jon out of position, it would make it hard for him to trust me the next time I said "sit on my wheel". I didn't want to accelerate too hard to close gaps because then Jon wouldn't be getting as much benefit sitting on my wheel. It's more effective to draft at steady speeds. Jumps require the following rider to make a matching jump, which cuts into the following rider's reserves. The whole time, though, I wanted to maintain better than normal field position so that Jon could sprint from a good spot.

Ideally I'd have jumped moderately hard at Turn 2 and led Jon to within about 100m of the line. However with the swarm at the bell, a lapped rider on the outside of Turn 1, and then another lapped rider mostly to the outside of Turn 2 (he was about 4-5 feet from the curb, enough so that riders passed him on both sides), and finally, riders hitting the deck around Turn 2, I was nowhere near in ideal position.

In fact, in Turn 2, I had to slow because the lapped rider wasn't very predictable and I didn't want to run into him.

Gap on the back stretch after some shenanigans at Turn 2.

Once I got around the lapped rider I wasn't on a wheel and the wheel I wasn't on wasn't on a wheel either. It was the front guys, the one guy, then me. I didn't want to jump across the gap because then I'd hurt Jon. Therefore I eased across the gap, accelerating steadily and then holding just enough speed to close the gap.

To his credit Jon stuck to my wheel the whole time. This was perfect for him because he was out of the wind, he was following me, and he'd have a stronger sprint when it counted in 15 seconds than he would have had he tried to close the gaps himself.

The front four riders really rolled hard through the last turn, Turn 3.

The front riders went very hard into the last turn. I'd closed up to the rider in front but unfortunately it was more that he slowed rather than I went hard. He wasn't closing to the guys in front, leaving a substantial gap as we entered Turn 3. It wasn't worth it to try and pass the guy so I stayed on his wheel through the turn, losing ground to the front riders every moment I sat there.

This left me a lot of work to do to close the gap up for Jon.

Once we exited the turn I triple checked to make sure Jon was still sitting there. He was. I'm sure he was wondering how this was going to play out because we were really far behind with just about 250m to go in the race.

Although Jon is smaller than me on the bike I still tried to do my "big draft" thing. I went to the tops, flared out my elbows, and lifted my head. It's not efficient for me but it would help Jon. I also stayed seated so that I wouldn't be able to do too much of a peak acceleration. This would make my pace a bit more steady, making it easier for Jon to follow me.

Then I went as hard as I could.

Finally pulled off, Jon just about on the wheels.

Just before I closed up on the leading trio I started to fade and pulled off to the right. I had heard and saw Jon moving up the left. We were going visibly faster than the riders in front and Jon basically got slingshotted into the back of the front three riders.

Jon jumped shortly after and won the sprint to the line.

Virtually immediately he went right and jumped. I couldn't tell from where I was but it seems that he clearly won a tight 4 man sprint.

Junior greeting me after the race.

Missus in purple, Pops sitting in the chair.

I normally don't do a cool down lap but riders had hit the deck at Turn 2. I wanted to let them know I had Tegaderm and stuff for road rash in the car at the race. I rolled around, let them know, and then returned to home base. It takes a bit of time for us to pack up so we started that process. Junior helped me walk the bike back to the car. We returned to the base camp where the Missus had waited with Pops. Then Junior helped the Missus carry stuff to the car while I walked Pops to the car and got him situated in his seat. Next Junior came with me to hand out some of the Tegaderm and such to the two riders that had fallen.  Finally we made a final trip to the portapotties for Junior. To him they're an adventure because they're only at bike races.

(Road rash care tips, this one has pictures.)

Then it was time to go. Junior virtually passed out on the way home - by 7:30 he was pretty exhausted, 8:00 he's done.

I was sitting in the back with him, the first aid box between us. He's in his "narrative stage" according to someone that works with kids, and boy does he narrate. He remembers stuff, he observes, and he narrates it all to us. For example did you know there were two cemeteries between The Rent and the entrance to 291? I didn't realize that until last night when he pointed them out plus reminded me that there's a cemetery near our house. He gleefully pointed out the Hershey Kiss (it's a logo for Stan something, I think it's a bank, by the Stop & Shop), the red flower on the nursery sign, and some other things. He also told me that I have to say sorry if I push someone (I was telling the Missus that I pushed someone to help them close a gap).

A few minutes from the course we got onto the long connector to 291. He went glassy eyed about then as he stared off into space, so tired he stopped talking about all the things he saw outside the window. It reminded me that even the B race was late for us. The A race? Things would have to be very different for me to be able to do the A race.

Speaking of which... I don't think I'll be able to go to Keith Berger this weekend. The 3-4 race is totally out of the question due to time. M40 is very tough time-wise also. P123 may not be prudent for me. Plus my budget for race entries is $220 this year, the cash I had in my wallet in December. I've spent $75 at the Rent so far, for five races. Unless another race pops up at Walnut Hill Park it may be that the Tuesday Night Worlds will be it for me this season.

And, believe it or not, I don't have a problem with that.

Racing - CCAP Tuesday Night Criterium, June 7, 2016, B race

So Tuesday the 7th was my second race of the year, second ride outside. My first week was a disaster, with a combination of issues making me feel pretty uncomfortable on the bike. As a reminder the main problems were that I had a too-tight headset, making it virtually impossible for me to make small trajectory adjustments. I felt like I was swerving from curb to curb. Which I wasn't, but still, I felt really unfluent on the bike. The other problem was I was experimenting with a longer position. It was okay on the trainer but unacceptable on the road. Because of the custom stem on the red bike I was doing my fit experimentation on the black bike.

For this week I decided to revert to the red bike. It'd have the same reach/drop that I've had for a couple years, once I got my custom stem. I moved the 170mm cranks back to the red bike, the final major undecided change I've made over the course of the winter.

Note: the one major change that seems to have worked out well is trying out the Adamo ISM saddle, the unconventional twin tusk saddle that people seem to love or hate.

With the red bike back on the trainer, before the race on the 7th, I noticed, too, that the FSA Wing Compact bars are much, much stiffer than the old 3ttt Gimondi bars. So a little bonus there.

Initially I thought we wouldn't be racing on Tuesday, due to the weather, but as the 24 hours prior to the race ticked away the weather forecast went from sort of grim ("50% chance of thundershowers") to pretty good ("0-15% chance of thundershowers"). By 10 AM or so I started adjusting my schedule to accommodate the 2 hour time slot the race (stuff to do with my Pops and such).

For me the great thing about Tuesdays is the incredibly quick pre-race process once I've raced there the second time. I have my number, I take my time pinning it at home, using as many pins as I want (I forgot to take a picture of my number two weeks running now), I pump up the tires before I leave (race isn't far away so tire pressure isn't a problem). When I get there I get my bike out, slip on the race wheels which I pumped up just an hour ago max, sign the big form, pay my money, and I can race.

I thought I'd get a warm up lap in and rolled away from our base camp just beyond the start finish. I got maybe 20 feet and Karen, the official, called everyone to the line.

So much for the warm up.

Start

With a two lap neutral start I felt my non-warmup wasn't a problem. Unlike last week I even remembered to bring a bottle, so no stopping and chasing back on during the neutral bit.

And the neutral laps, although it picked up with about 200m to go on the second and final neutral lap, weren't fast laps. I remember watching the Philly race one year, when it was Corestates. Someone flatted in their neutral laps, which are parade laps around a short loop at the start/finish. Thing was that they were flying along, probably 30 mph or faster. A rider from a smaller team punctured, struggled to get back on, the team sent two more riders back, I think they worked so hard that one rider never got back on. At any rate when you hear "neutral laps" you might get a 15 mph thing or you might get a 30 mph thing. Just be wary.

Wind from the left here, then on the next bit it was from the right. Tricky.

The wind was moderately strong Tuesday. Not horrible but enough so that you had to Wind Manage a bit. I spent a bit of the race experimenting - the worst was that in the curving finish straight the wind started out from the left but then ended on the right. This meant being to the right of the rider in front of you as you exited Turn 3 but then being to the left of the rider in front of you entering Turn 1. Combined with the long sweeping, multi-apex curve, it was a bit tricky moving from one side to the other.

I did notice one rider consistently finding shelter to the right as we exited Turn 3. However he stayed right as I moved left and he ended up in the wind as we passed the start/finish. I helpfully pointed out that he should try to stay left at that point.

Then the next lap I realized that the wind had shifted just enough that it was a plain headwind on the start/finish line - staying left or right didn't matter, you really wanted to be directly behind.

So I gave incorrect advice. I'm sure the rider was rolling around for a few laps thinking, "Who the heck does that guy think he is?"

Strung out.

The B race this Tuesday felt pretty hard. Although not quite at last year's A race levels, the race was definitely strung out a bunch of times. People raced aggressively.

I noticed with alarming clarity that when the race got strung out I suffered. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this because although I haven't raced outside I didn't think I'd suffer so much. Obviously I lack some aerobic conditioning, even for me. The only thing I can think of is that I haven't been riding very hard on the trainer; combined with my almost 3 month late start, I'm starting on March legs when everyone else has June legs. If that's the case I never realized how important it was to start early. That's food for thought for a different post - I think it's significant for someone that is "just starting out".

Legs failing me, I had to let gaps go.

As the attacks continued I started doing something I never expected to do - letting gaps go. I literally couldn't respond to the pace surges. I felt like a restrictor plate racer in an otherwise open field (restrictor plates artificially choke car engines, it's like breathing through a straw). I was okay with the easy stuff but as soon as I gunned it my power seemed capped. Based on my SRM data, my heartrate basically plateaued at about 160 bpm. I lacked the conditioning to rev my heart into the upper 160s, something I could do in 2015.

Sitting second wheel, with Jeff right behind.

Picture by Jeff Cote.

Having said that I did manage to get up there once or twice, and someone (Jeff Cote in this case) happened to capture it on film.

My view at about the same time.

Sitting from left to right is the Base Camp with Junior, the Missus, and Pops.

No, I'm not off the back with this guy, although based on my normal crit riding tactics, if you see one rider in front of me it's either 100m to go or I'm off the back.

Moving up hard to do a leadout.

This is on the backstretch of the last lap.

I was pretty redlined so I decided not to contest the sprint. I did want to do whatever I could to lead out the sprint, but the actual sprinting bit I figured was a bit far off. On the last lap no one made an early move so I could follow wheels without going into the red. On the backstretch I moved up the left side.

When I got about 3rd wheel, drawing up to Ralph on ERRACE, I was shouting to get on my wheel and tapping my hip. My riding broadcasted that I was going "now" but just to be sure I was also yelling it out loud and gesticulating as well. Ralph got the message and was the first to make a move.

Jeff takes over leadout duties and basically pulls me until the sprint truly starts.

At the same time my teammate Jeff thought it would be a nice gift to have me win in front of my Pops. Very touching, to be honest, because I really hadn't thought of it. I went out and won the 2005 Bethel Spring Series for my mom, and my dad was there cheering on the sidelines. In 2010 I won and, in my mind, that was for my dad. Now, though, not much registers with him, so any win would be really for my benefit.

Well, maybe Junior's also. He's still getting to understand the whole racing thing and he is learning about "first, second, third, fourth" etc, and it would be cool if he could say "My dad was first!".

In case you're wondering about the Missus, I think if I won she'd be happy for me, but she also knows that my sit and sprint tactics work pretty well with the B race. Plus as a long time racer it's not nice to beat up on newer riders. It's like a low level black belt (mainly earned because you'd have to be a blackbelt in your 34th season of racing... has it been that long?) "winning" against a white or yellow belt.

If I won the A race she'd be extremely surprised as I've never won a proper A race here before (I'm not counting the rain-shortened one from eons ago).

I did win a B race in 2014 but it was about as hard a race as I've ever done, mainly because most of the protagonists were Cat 3s by the end of the season. So there's that. We'll see how it goes this year, but my expectation is that I won't go for a win in the B race.

Ralph goes!

Note Jeff and I have moved right to get out of the way.

As Jeff pulled like a madman I sat on his wheel. To put things in perspective my power numbers here were pretty low. My initial surge to move up the side took about 640 watts, so something I could sustain to the line. Jeff went and I hit 800 watts briefly to get on his wheel, but sitting on his wheel my power quickly dropped into the 300-400w range. I'm sure Jeff was more in the 800w range, if not more.

Jeff moved gently to the right as his legs started to go. I moved with him, not intending to sprint, opening up the left/inside for whoever. At this point Ralph was on my wheel but I didn't know that. I just hoped someone got my wheel before Jeff did his big effort.

Ralph wins!

Note Jeff kneeling by the cone, taking a picture.

A few riders passed us before we coasted across the line. Jeff's leadout was super effective, with just Ralph on our wheel.

The picture Jeff Cote took.

View from the sidelines.

The field was pretty splintered at the finish. It's a sign of a good leadout. The point with a leadout is to first keep the tactical situation static, i.e. people really don't move around much because it's all they can do to just hold the wheel in front of them. The other point is to try and reduce the odds. Usually a leadout will occur around course features like a corner or wind or something. By doing what amounts to an early sprint, a leadout really amplifies the pack effects of said corner or wind or whatever. A lot of times a good leadout will cause gaps to form in the field, like if the leadout started just before a corner it's very difficult to accelerate up to leadout speed when you're focused on not sliding out in a corner.

In my case my "leadout" wasn't super fast because Jeff easily rolled by me. I should have been going a bit harder, closer to the 800w number I hit while getting on Jeff's wheel. However because of my speed differential to the riders at the front of the field I didn't want to go much harder.

Plus, to be totally frank, I didn't think I could go much harder.

Junior and my bike. Note ISM saddle.

After the race Junior, as usual, wanted to pedal the bike, meaning backward. His delight in everything always brings a smile to my heart. Last week I turned off the camera immediately but this week I tried to capture some of his glee in playing with my bike.

With extremely threatening clouds virtually at the course we packed up as quick as possible. My Pops doesn't move fast so if we got hit with a downpour it would have been very wet. As it was was hit some heavy rain just a few miles away from the venue.

As far as the race numbers go, I was actually a bit shocked. I knew the race was hard but I didn't realize just how hard. I averaged 197w for the 40 minutes we raced, including the two neutral laps. Golden Cheetah (the power software I use) is weird - it also says I averaged 215w, which is probably an error. Even worse it says my weighted average ("normalized power") was 210w. In other words it's saying my average was 215w but my normalized was lower at 210w. I'm sticking with the 197w. My average heartrate was just 157 bpm, well below what I'd expect to see.

I did hit a lot of peaks but none of them were very high. With Zwift I've gotten into the habit of looking for 23 second peaks so I do that even now, to give me some comparison numbers. In Zwift, for a max effort, I'll usually see 800-850w, with my best numbers being in the 950w range. In the race my best 23 second power was on the last lap and I did just 547w.

On the other hand I broke 600w about 20 times (of those four efforts broke 800w), meaning the race required me to make some efforts. If I was better, if I could rev my heart a bit more, I probably would have had bigger peaks but fewer of them - bigger efforts to get on a wheel but saving me the need to close gaps later.

Going Foward

So I got rid of the longer position. I went back to the red bike, which has my favored FSA bars in the right position and a properly adjusted headset. I do miss the slightly shorter stays of the black bike so maybe the thing to do is to move the stem/bars over to that. Not yet though as that's a lot of work.

I'm still on the fence about the 170 mm cranks. I felt like I couldn't surge well with the 170s, like I couldn't close gaps quickly. I'm definitely more a pusher than a spinner, although that might be because I used 175s for 10 of the last 12 seasons. However I definitely tend to push too much, as illustrated by the time I had a mechanical and had to do the Tuesday Night (A) race in the 39T chainring. So maybe I need to learn how to spin again?

I don't know.

It might be that it'll be easier for me to put the 175s back on. I felt capped like this in 2003 when I tried 175s for the first time. I felt like it in 2008, when I had only 170 cranks for the SRM, and again in 2011, when I tried to find some more speed. My best years in that time, 2005, 2010, 2015, I raced 175s.

Hm hm hm.